Conventionally, polymerizable compositions for dental use are used as fillers to fill lost portions of teeth or cavities formed for treatment or as adhesive agents used in repairing teeth.
Before being hardened, polymerizable compositions for dental use are usually in a paste state and arranged to fill a predetermined location such as lost portions within a mouth. Then, after the arrangement and filling, the polymerizable compositions for dental use are hardened to repair lost portions of teeth or the like.
Hence, before being hardened, polymerizable compositions for dental use are required to have an appropriate viscosity and excellent operability so as to be easily arranged to fill lost portions of teeth or the like. Then, after being hardened, polymerizable compositions for dental use are required to have a sufficient mechanical strength such that natural teeth can be replaced with the polymerizable compositions, for example.
In this way, conventionally, various considerations are performed for polymerizable compositions for dental use to have excellent operability before being hardened and to have a sufficient mechanical strength after being hardened.
For example, Patent Document 1 discloses a dental composition that contains a polymerizable monomer component (A) and an amorphous filler (B) having an average particle diameter of 1 μm to 20 μm. The amorphous filler contains silica-based fine particles and coatings of an oxide that covers the surfaces of the silica-based fine particles. The oxide contains a zirconium atom, a silicon atom and an oxygen atom. The dental composition contains 20 to 500 parts by weight of the filler (B) per 100 parts by weight of the polymerizable monomer component (A), and has a viscosity within a range of 10 to 800 Pa·s.